Prideful is the Wolf
by sheepishwolfy
Summary: Pride is his name, and pride will be his downfall. A handful of short post-game Solavellan pieces. Trespasser spoilers.
1. In the Tower

She expected to find him perched on the scaffold, paint smudging his fingers and perhaps his face, lost in the final panel of his mural. That he would forgo the party to complete it did not surprise her; Solas could be reclusive even on the best of days.

In her hands she carried a scarlet napkin, an assortment of tiny Orlesian pies folded within. Mostly lamb and sage, his favorite, but a few that smelled of herbs and elfroot and reminded her of home. Hopefully she could coax him from his perch and convince him to eat, maybe smile if she was lucky. He had been nearly distraught over that elven orb, shattered with the death of Corypheus.

The door at the end of the hall was closed, and she nudged it open with her elbow, calling his name as she entered. She fell silent, seeing the room was dark. Even the veilfire sconce on the wall, an ever-present greenish glow, was snuffed out.

"Solas?" she repeated, slowly. Silence, even the music and laughter from the main hall so faint she could barely hear it.

A wave of her hand and the torches along the wall blazed to life, bathing the room in warm orange light. The scaffold was empty, the final painting barely half-finished. She approached the desk in the center of the room, which had seemingly been cleared of all his belongings. All but a single neatly folded parchment, bulging around an object contained within, a single word written on it in his flowing hand.

 _Lavellan_.

There was the faintest tremor in her hands as she set aside the napkin and lifted the envelope, a prickle of apprehension in her chest. She turned it over, breaking the seal and carefully unfolding the paper. Inside was written a brief note, obscured by the length of leather cording coiled around…

The Anchor flared and stung when she touched the object, green sparks skittering after it as it clattered to the desktop. She hissed and shook her wrist, flexing her fingers as the mark fell dormant again.

It was his necklace. The fragment of a jawbone he had always worn, had sometimes fingered when deep in thought. Tentatively she reached for it again, and this time the Anchor did not respond. Lifting it, she ran her thumb along its edge. The pendant was smooth and denser than any bone she had encountered, though if it was blackened by fire or age she could not tell.

She looked from the pendant to the envelope, hoping for some sort of explanation. Quickly she read the few lines he had left her, and then read them again, searching. The paper drifted onto the desk as she sank back into his chair.

 _Ir abelas, vhenan. I go where I cannot ask you to follow._


	2. In the Valley

"There's still the matter of the Anchor. It's getting worse."

"I know, vhenan." He could feel the pull and flow of the Fade, centered around her left hand. The Anchor was weak, now, but like the ocean receding before a great wave it would soon flood back and drown her. But not yet, not while he still had so much to tell her. "We are running out of time. The mark-"

As if on cue her hand sparked and surged, green fire engulfing her arm to the shoulder. Anais cried out and fell to her knees, clutching the Anchor to her chest. _It shouldn't be advancing this quickly_ , Solas thought, watching in silent horror, every muscle in his body screaming to run to her. He kept his face impassive, barely, but lashed out wildly with any and every spell that might contain the rift trying to tear through Anais' very body.

"The mark will eventually kill you," he said, slowly, hoping his words were steady as he approached her. "Drawing you here, it gave me a chance to save you."

Solas knelt, just out of reach, knowing that any closer his discipline would shatter. It nearly did, when Anais lifted her face and he saw the sweat beaded on her forehead, the gauntness of her face, the pallor of her skin. Her eyes burned with agony.

"The Anchor," he said, extending his hand. By some miracle, his fingers did not tremble. "Show it to me, let me end this."

She dropped her gloved hand into his, hunching forward and groaning as another surge of green rippled from the Anchor. "It will be quick," he promised, carefully stripping away her gauntlet. Her skin burned against his bare palm, heated by the raw power of ancient magic. He drew in a long breath, touching the edges of his power to the seam of the Anchor but not yet pulling. For a moment everything stilled, even the wind, even her shaky breaths, even the hammering of his heart.

It was over in an instant and an eternity. There was no elegance to it, no delicacy. He tore the Anchor from her flesh in one swift act, purging every last hint of the Anchor's magic from her hand and drawing it into himself.

Her scream echoed off the walls of the valley, piercing through the tattered remnants of his resolve. When her other hand fisted into the front of his coat, knuckles white and shaking, he shattered. His arms went around her nearly of their own accord, pulling her close.

" _Ir abelas_ ," he gasped, burying his face in the too-familiar curve of her neck. That he could inflict such pain on her, his love, his heart... He could only repeat the apology, weak and inadequate in the face of her suffering. " _Abelas, vhenan. Abelas."_

He held her until her shuddering sobs began to still, until her grip on him finally loosened. After a time, she spoke his name, her voice hoarse but unwavering.

"Solas."

"My love," he replied.

" _Var lath vir suledin_ ," she said, all of her sorrow and her love poured into those four words.

He sat back, not quite ready to release her but needing to see her face. "I wish it could," he said, sadly. "I will not forget you."

He moved to stand but she stopped him, catching his coat and pulling him back down. Her lips were warm and soft and familiar against his, the smell and the heat of her the closest thing he knew to a home.

"Don't do this," she said, breaking their kiss but not pulling away. "Please, Solas. You don't have to do this, we can find another way."

Stroking his thumbs over her cheeks, over the vallaslin she would not let him take, he shook his head. "There is no other way, vhenan."

It took all the strength of a god to leave her there, whimpering and broken, curled around the ruin of her hand. She sobbed quietly as he walked away, but if he turned back now, he knew he would not be able to leave her again. Her companions would be able to reach her as soon as he was gone.

The eluvian rippled to life as he approached, his reflection dissolving into the image of a distant ruin. Perhaps he would break this one, once he was safely on the other side. He had no wish to return to this place.

" _Fen'Harel_!"

His head snapped around at the name, spat like a curse from her lips. Anais was on her feet, leaning heavily on her staff but upright and remarkably steady. Blood dripped from the blackened fingers of her left hand.

Fen'Harel allowed himself a moment of surprise and awe. He no longer spoke to Anais, gentle and kind. This was Inquisitor Lavellan, clad in legend and glory.

"Inquisitor," he said, coldly, squaring his shoulders and clasping his hands at the small of his back. This is how it would be, then.

"I will not let you destroy this world," she said, the words a promise.

"You do not have a choice," he stated.

Her brow furrowed, her mouth curling into a snarl. "I swear it, Dread Wolf, by the false gods and the true, I will stop you. One way or another, _this ends_."

"You can try, Inquisitor," he said, confident, though something tugged at his certainty.

 _Fear_. It crawled up the back of his neck like a spider. Never had he been on the receiving end of the Inquisitor's ire, but now it actually struck fear into him. He knew, with absolute conviction, that if anyone could stop him, it would be her.

Some part of him hoped she would.


	3. In the Meadow

The breeze gently lifted the hair from her forehead, pleasant but with just the barest hint of late-winter chill behind it. She inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of bluebells and earth. Early evening light filtered green through the canopy, warming her enough that she could shrug off her heavier coat. It would be dark soon enough, but that wasn't important now.

Anais closed her eyes, tilted her head back against the bark of the tree and exhaled slowly. This was her favorite place, especially in the springtime when the flowers began to bloom. The forest was quiet here, untouched by human hand, undisturbed by the chaos of the rest of the world. Here, she was not First or Inquisitor or Herald.

She folded her hand in her lap and listened, imagining she could hear the whispers of her ancestors, of her creators. Some part of her could, since the Well, but that wasn't what she heard now. The wind in the trees and the faint ever-present hum of insects and the distant call of a bird...

The soft creak of a footstep nearby.

Her eyes snapped open as he stepped into the field of bluebells, walking in the measured, sinuous manner of his name.

"Dread Wolf," she hissed, surging to a ready crouch and grasping for her staff. Of course it was not there, she never brought it here. She'd never needed it.

Fen'Harel stopped his advance, lifting his hands in entreaty. "I mean no harm, _lethallan_."

" _Tel'lethallin_ ," she said, the response instant and venomous. He did not appear surprised by her reaction.

" _Ir abelas_ ," he said, sincere.

" _Garas quenathra_?" she demanded, straightening. Her eyes darted over him, finding him clad in only well-worn breeches and a tunic, belted at the waist and open at the neck, his sleeves pushed to his elbows. He looked as he did at Skyhold, years ago, and she half-expected to see paint smudged on his bare forearms. No gleaming golden armor, instead so familiar it stuttered the beat of her heart. "What do you want?"

"I only wish to bear you a message, Inquisitor. A warning."

She scoffed, shaking her head, a rueful smile pulling at her lips. "A warning?" she repeated. "I already know your plans, Dread Wolf. I know you wish to tear another hole in the sky."

"Do you think me so prideful?" he asked, eyebrows briefly knitting. "That I would come here to gloat?"

"Your name is pride," she said. A beat, and she amended, " _Was_ pride."

He couldn't suppress a small smile, for she was not wrong."Still is."

"Spit it out, Dread Wolf. Give me your message and be on your way."

She could not know how the title wounded him. He bore the mantle of Fen'Harel with grinning pride against his enemies, against the Evanuris slavers centuries ago. But on her lips it seemed a curse, hurled like a knife at his throat.

"A number of my agents believe me... weak, in some matters," he said, carefully reconstructing the wall of impassivity around himself. "Matters regarding the former Inquisition and its members."

She nodded, barely more than a brief dip of her chin, but said nothing.

"They believe you to be the biggest threat to our cause, and have begun to operate outside of my influence."

"I am the biggest threat to your _cause_ ," she said, with a humorless laugh.

"They are coming to kill you, Anais," he snapped.

"Let them try." She squared her shoulders towards him, fist clenching at her side, chin tipping up in defiance. "They will not stop me."

"I do not doubt that," he said. Her hair had grown long in the time since he had seen her, falling over her shoulder in a loose auburn braid.

"Why come yourself?" she asked, suspicion blatant in the question. "Why not send a messenger, or a letter? You have spies, even among Leliana's flock. Why not one of them?"

"I could not risk revealing them yet. And..." He hesitated, debating. "And I wished to see you, I... needed to see you, _vhenan_."

Stunned silence fell over the meadow, and Fen'Harel averted his gaze. The endearment had burst forth of its own accord, to hang between them as a reminder of what had been. Habitually he reached for the spot on his chest where once a pendant had been. Spots of color bloomed high on Anais' cheeks and at the tips of her ears, her hand lifting to her mouth. The Dread Wolf, abashed before her, flustered and fidgeting like a boy.

"What is this place?" he asked, quickly, before she could say anything about his slip.

"Just a field. In the Free Marches," she said, but the reply was absent. Her fingers had fallen from her lips to her collarbone, her expression softened but entirely inscrutable.

"It must be important to you, somehow, or you would not be here." He was just talking for the sake of it now.

She searched his face, looking for... she didn't know what she expected, or hoped, to find. "My clan passed it often, when I was a girl. I came here to see the bluebells- the _numin'Sylaise_ ," she corrected herself. Too long amongst the shem'len. "But the shems built a Chantry here, fifteen years ago. Right after the Blight."

Fen'Harel shook his head, huffed a breath. "Of course they did. _Ir abelas, lethallan,_ that you may never see it again in the waking world."

" _Ma serannas_."

"Your control of the Fade is stronger, now," he said.

She shrugged, and for the first time since his arrival she smiled. A true smile, untainted by bitterness or anger. "I learned from the best, _hahren_."

The world around them seemed impossibly still. Suspended, as though the earth and the Fade itself waited for one of them to move.

" _Dareth shiral_ ," he said, hurriedly, and turned to leave before sentimentality overcame him entirely.

He froze when her arm circled him, her face pressed against the space between his shoulders. Her fingers buried in the thin fabric of his shirt, so close to his skin that he ached. Her breath was hot against his spine as she spoke.

" _Vian re varem mahn na de_ _,_ Solas."

At the sound of his true name he sagged, his head falling back and his hands closing over hers, their fingers tangling together. " _Mi'nas'sal'ina_ ," he murmured.

She began to pull away, but he turned and took her face in his hands, ducking his head to press their lips together. Her arm was around him again in an instant, pulling him tightly against her. The kiss was fierce and desperate, built on years of heat and longing.

They sank to their knees in the grass, her fingers tugging at his belt and his fumbling at the collar of her shirt.

"We should not," he breathed against her lips, though he did not slow.

"I don't care," she replied, tossing his belt aside. She pushed her hand beneath his shirt, fingernails tracing up his stomach. His breath caught in his chest at her touch, his fingers stuttering over the clasps- _so many clasps-_ that ran from her neck to the hem of her shirt. Finally, through an eternity of her mouth on his, her teeth against his jaw and his throat, her fingers teasing the edge of his breeches, he freed her from that damnable shirt. He pushed it over her shoulders to reveal her copper skin, the emerald branches of the _vallaslin_ that traced the lines of her collarbone and chest, flowed down her arms...

That ended abruptly at her left elbow, the heavy price paid for the Anchor. He had noticed it, the way her shirtsleeve was folded and pinned over the end of her arm, had known at the back of his mind that it had been lost because of him. But now, confronted with it, truly seeing what loving him cost her, words failed him.

" _Vhenan,_ I..." He sat back on his heels, sorrow settling behind his ribs, constricting his lungs. He closed his eyes, unworthy even to look at her. "I'm-"

"Don't," she said, pressing her thumb to his lips, the rest of her fingers settling along his jaw. "Solas, please, just... _Tel'abelas._ It was inevitable. It does not stop me."

He placed his hand over hers, turning his face into her palm. "Again you shame me," he murmured. "Perhaps I am prideful, to think I could ever hinder you."

"Of course you are," she said, but there was no malice behind it. She leaned forward, laying a gentle kiss to his temple. He tilted his head up and caught her mouth with his again, slowly this time. The urgency was gone, but the need was still there. The need was always there, to see her, to touch her.

" _Isalan hima sa i'na_. _"_ He pressed the words into the tender flesh just below her ear, punctuated with teeth and tongue and breath.

Drawing closer, she tugged at the edge of his tunic. He obliged her, dragging it over his head and casting it aside. Catching her by the hips he pulled her to him, reveling in the feel of her her skin against his. Fingers following the contour of her waist to the swell of her breast, he slid a thumb over one dark nipple, eliciting a sharp inhale.

"Solas," she sighed, just a hair's breadth from his ear. His name on her lips broke the dam within him, desire washing over him, burning just under his skin, threatening to consume him. She felt him harden against her belly, and smiled beneath his latest kiss. Her hand found the strained laces of his breeches and deftly released them, then dipped inside.

A shudder and a groan escaped him as her fingers, soft and familiar, curled around the length of him. " _Vhenan_ ," he gasped. Her laugh was breathy, her fingers eager. He pushed at the waistband of her trousers, fingertips brushing the contours of her hips to draw forth gooseflesh and sighs. A fleeting moment of regret when she withdrew her hand from him, quickly forgotten when she moved to liberate herself from her breeches. He wasted no time in doing the same, and soon they came together again, skin to skin.

With nothing left to separate them, not distance or anger or titles, they could forget the world beyond the meadow. She was not the wolfhunter as she traced her tongue along the hollow of his throat. He was not longer the traitorous god as he he drew his fingers through her hair, left a line of kisses along her jaw.

When she lay back, he did not immediately follow. He paused, drinking in the sight of her, dedicating this exact moment to memory. Verdant tattoos against warm brown skin, dark auburn hair pooling around pointed ears, upturned green-gold eyes, deep red lips parted with desire. She reached for him, impatient and hungry. He lowered to meet her, found her slick and wanting.

He entered her slowly. Slender legs hooked over his hips, drawing him deeper. Again and again she whispered his name against his fevered skin, her hips matching the languid pace he set. He tried to maintain that unhurried rhythm, to remain here as long as possible, but too soon he lost himself in the quickening of her breath and the arch of her spine. Too soon she was gasping and rolling her hips hard into his, cheeks and chest flushing as she came. Too soon he followed, groaning and shuddering and releasing into her, face buried in her shoulder.

Afterwards, when their breath returned and their vision cleared, they sat naked in their bed of bluebells, facing one another, legs touching. He traced an idle pattern into the soft flesh of her thigh as she told him about the book she was reading, the mending she needed done to her coat. Things of little greater import but that he could listen to her speak about forever.

She had a bit of greenery stuck in her hair, just over her ear, and he reach to pluck it away. When he sat back she had fallen silent, her expression growing serious, sad.

"Are you lonely, Solas?" she asked.

He smiled, but it did not touch his eyes. "Not with you," he said. "Never with you."

"But when I am not here," she pressed. "When we leave this place."

"It is the burden I must bear, to do what must be done."

At that Anais lowered her gaze, brow knitting. "There's still time," she said softly. "You don't have to be alone."

"I will not ask you to follow me," he said. "And I know that you would not, anyway. But neither will I change my course."

"I know," she said, and sighed. She leaned forward, closing the distance between them, and kissed him once more. She tasted of sorrow and finality.

"We cannot do this again," she said, forehead pressed to his. He settled his hands on her hips, closing his eyes.

"I know," he said, and let her go.

He still had her scent in his nostrils when he opened his eyes, in a bed far from the field in the Free Marches. She could still feel caress of his fingers through her hair, when she woke in her chambers at Skyhold.

Alone.

* * *

Thank god for the DA Wiki and Project Elvhen, and the copious amounts of elven language found there.  
Translations:  
Tel'lethallin: Not my kin  
Garas quenathra: What are you doing here?  
Numin'Sylaise: tears of Sylaise. i admit i made this one up myself because i figured the Dalish would have their own word for bluebells  
Ma sarannas: thank you  
Hahren: elder, teacher  
Vian re varem mahn na de: A hole was left where you were. Basically a super elaborate "i miss you"  
Mi'nas'sal'ina: i feel the knife within my soul. Also a super elaborate I miss you. They're a really dramatic couple.  
Tel'abelas: Not sorry  
Isalan hima sa i'na: I lust to become one with you


End file.
